a maze becomes a labyrinth

I have some marvelous photos from last Sunday in Church, taken from the choir loft. Unfortunately they have little to do with my stay here in Wilkesboro NC while I allow the holistic clinicians to have their way with me! You'd think I'd have an easier time finding my one thematic photo for each post....

My overall sense today is that I feel I'm working with good people. Not just nice, but capable, conscious, caring.... and professional. Come to think of it, many of those I encountered in conventional oncology land were of a similar ilk, with the teensy tiny exception that I grew to encounter a shuddering resistance to their methods of dealing with cancer.

I am moving away from the fearsome enormity of conceptualizing the leukemia as central to my life (or death) to looking at how I may live, period. How all of me may live.... not just this ragged and sometimes melodramatic issue. As the pastor of my Church and I agreed in a short one-on-one visit, I don't want to be known as leukemia girl. And I'm not, dammit - the thing's in remission today, thanks be to God!

Today was Day 2 at the Clinic. I won't unpack every nuance, but it anchored in more of my sense that I'm working with a good crew. First order of the day was to live through having an IV drip of DMPS (with a glycine shooter preceding it), its purpose being heavy metal chelation - e.g. loosening up to ultimately get rid of. The next bit was the most heavenly - a long, dreamy hour-plus of a lymph drainage massage. Oh bliss. And the massage therapist was a lovely, God-emanating being..... wow. Normally I eschew massages as an expensive quick fix leaving me mostly spacey and covered with lotions, but today's was a treat. Afterwards was a detoxification procedure that involved coffee. Honey, that's all I'll say for that one for now! It had been perhaps 20 years since I done did one o' those.....

I then met with both docs sequentially and reviewed the lab results from yesterday's oww-oww blood draw. With the first we discussed hormonal levels and how they might affect immune system compromise. With the 2nd, I was in tears of gratitude at some of the numbers, which ROCKED! My WBC is 1.5, up from last month's 1.2; reds maintaining their low but near-normal numbers, and my platelets.... 97. Almost 100. I can't remember the last time. One month ago they were 58 or so.

Interestingly, he went through all of the other bits, which showed remarkably resilient strength for someone having been battered with chemo. I was swooning with gratitude as he pointed out the list of Good Things, from glucose to uric acid to protein levels (busting the mold that every cancer patient must be on a pure vegetarian diet) to liver and kidney strength! My cholesterol rocks ("You can tell you're a runner," he said). The weak spots, from calcium to B12 to iron levels, we'll attend to with quality supplements. And the coming few weeks will return test results for heavy metal toxicity. Even my cortisol levels are strong! That's a stress hormone, and its strength is indicative that I'm not withering under the strain of "doing battle." Which is of course a powerful part of my stepping into healing.

Tomorrow I'll sit through a 3+ hour IV nutrition blast. This will be the 1st time that I've been next to an IV pole holding something utterly good for me. I'm still needle- and pain-phobic, but the sitting room is social and educational. I will come with snacks and maybe even a latté to see if I piss anyone off. I mean, someone's got to keep the Purity Police on their toes......